Toolkit to aid crime reduction

The College of Policing has launched a crime reduction toolkit providing practitioners and strategic leaders with all available evidence on 300 potential interventions.

Launched on Tuesday (March 3), the toolkit allows every existing review of research evidence on crime reduction interventions to be viewed in one place and summarises the evidence on how, and in which circumstances, each intervention works.

The college says this will help practitioners not only understand what does or does not work, but also what makes a particular intervention work in an operational context.

Over the past 18 months academics have searched and logged every review of crime reduction evidence in the world, from evidence on CCTV to electronic monitoring and neighbourhood watch.

They then recorded each review’s findings and methodology and have spent the past six months turning it into a toolkit that is easily accessible for policing practitioners.

Director of research, knowledge and education at the college, Rachel Tuffin, said the toolkit will be helpful to everyone from neighbourhood officers to police and crime commissioners.

For example, forces have often asked the college about the use of juvenile prison visits, in which offenders serving life sentences inform young people about life behind bars, termed ‘Scared Straight’ programmes, yet the research shows those involved are more likely to offend and the programmes cause more harm than good.

Ms Tuffin says the research has shown that a mentoring-type approach is more likely to be effective.

She added that the toolkit could serve as a gateway to evidence-based policing for all officers and staff and, as it is also openly available to members of the public, it can be used to challenge police decision-making.

No other organisation has produced such a comprehensive library of evidence on crime reduction interventions. Ms Tuffin said its development has been “like a ground clearing exercise”.

The toolkit is available on the What Works Centre for Crime Reduction web- site www.whatworks.college.police.uk